On Sept. 23, Baptist Hospital celebrated the one-year anniversary of moving from its “legacy campus” in a predominately Black neighborhood to its $650-million new campus on Brent Lane and I-110, near its competitor Ascension Sacred Heart.
- “It has been an incredible year, and we are honored that our community trusts us to care for them and their loved ones,” said Mark Faulkner, the Baptist Health Care CEO, in a press release. “We are proud of our new campus and the level of care it allows us to deliver.”
When he announced the move in 2019, the same Mark Faulkner said: “We’re going to do this in a way that allows us to maintain a significant presence at our current E Street campus.”
This is the same healthcare system that reported nearly three years of research, community discussions, and guidance from urban planning experts that helped its leadership develop a redevelopment vision.
- The vision had several tenets, many of which depended on public and private development, but the one within their power to fulfill was their assurance that Baptist Hospital would have a solution for “health care that meets the needs of the neighborhood and surrounding areas.” A Baptist vice president even reiterated that promise at a Pensacola City Council meeting.
When Baptist sent its celebratory press release, former Pensacola City Councilman Ronald Townsend called and said he had a few things he wanted to get off his chest. Would I meet with him?
- Ronald knows the neighborhood. When he and Lily were teenagers, they attended dances at the Fricker Center. He and his wife Lily are in their early 90s and have lived in the same house one block south of Baptist Hospital for decades.
Ronald met with Baptist officials, attended community meetings and was courted to support the hospital’s relocation. Because of his relationship with the Lakeview Center, a subsidiary of Baptist Health Care until 2021, he felt they would be honest with him. The Baptist leaders weren’t.
- “They told me they would leave a state-of-the-art facility here,” Ronald said. “We don’t even have an urgent care center there.”
Read Outtakes—A Lost Beacon of Hope.
Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash